Fantasy artist Joel Hustak brings out the beauty in monsters

Giant Centipedes and mucus-covered worms are somehow pleasing to the eye when Joel Hustak draws them.

As a Regina-based freelance illustrator, Hustak does all sorts of work, but monsters are his bread and butter.

“When I was young, I think I always was drawn to the strange and kind of creepy things,” said Hustak, 28.

“I just find that as my comfort zone. Even though they’re grotesque or monstrous, I still find the beauty in them. Choosing the right colours and getting the right effects going on, there’s something nice about it still.”

After studying interpretive illustration at Sheridan College in Toronto, Hustak travelled to workshops in the United States seeking advice from experienced fantasy artists. The feedback was tough at times, but it eventually gave him the opportunity to meet the art director at Fantasy Flight Games. The Minnesota-based company produces card games and tabletop role-playing games set in big-name franchises such as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.

In 2012, Hustak began drawing for Fantasy Flight, and his art has now appeared in its role-playing books and on the faces of playing cards. While he’s drawn droids and space ships from Star Wars, Hustak’s speciality is still creatures. One of his main commissions is painting the space epic’s slug-like crime lord Jabba the Hutt.

“When I did the first one. they really liked that … I think just the way I handled the textures and the wrinkles and stuff like that, and I really made him gross and slimy,” said Hustak.

Hustak’s other work for Fantasy Flight has involved drawing giant spiders and orcs for products set in the Lord of the Rings universe. He’s also done work for games based on the Game of Thrones books and the Warhammer 40,000 franchise.

Hustak mostly works digitally, using a tablet and a stylus so he can make alterations on the fly or zoom in to fine tune small details.

“I like to work with a semi-realistic style, but you can also kind of bend things to your will when it’s fantasy, so you can exaggerate colours or exaggerate anatomy,” said Hustak.

Designing monsters that don’t exist comes with creative freedom, but he still pulls inspiration from real beasts. While drawing a volcanic bear-like creature, Hustak has photos of a grizzly bear pulled up on his computer for reference.

“Usually real-world things are stranger than anything that we could come up with,” said Hustak.

Hustak now draws fictional fiends with technology, but he started off sketching human models the old fashioned way. As a teenager, Hustak attended drawing sessions at the Neil Balkwill Civic Arts Centre put on by Wayne Tunison. Every semester, Tunison said he could see Hustak’s craft improve.

“Joel is a very quiet man, but you know that he’s listening,” said Tunison, who still draws with Hustak.

Tunison described Hustak’s ability to infuse his portraits of models with not only the likeness of the person, but also “that little twinkle in the eye.” That skill also applies to drawing monsters, making them believable and all the more frightening.

“You’ve got a feeling they’re a thinking creature, and that’s where he is so powerful as an international artist,” said Tunison.

Outside of his work with Fantasy Flight Games, Hustak has done album cover art for The Strumbellas and created the art for an ancient occult book seen in the Saskatchewan-made movie WolfCop.

Dean and Hustak are now collaborating on an original comic book. A crowd funding campaign for the comic, which Dean described as “super-hero related,” will launch within the next six months.

“He really brings worlds to life. Supernatural worlds, unreal worlds, but they’re very grounded. So it’s the kind of art that was a no-brainer for me as soon as I wanted to do a comic,” said Dean.

Hustak would like to get involved with more film projects. One of his first goals was to create concept art for monsters in movies. He also hopes to one day work on the famous collectible card game Magic: The Gathering, which has 20 million players across the world.

“With them you have a lot more rights with your pieces, so for example you can do a traditional oil painting and you can sell that,” said Hustak.

Hustak’s ambitions aren’t merely financial. It’s also important that his job be artistically fulfilling.

“For a bit I was taking on jobs that I wasn’t really enjoying as much, so right now I’m sort of in a spot where I’m trying to just take on jobs that I want.”

Hustak, with his depiction of Jabba the Hutt.Don Healy /
Regina Leader-Post

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